Explore every episode of the podcast The Pemmy, Krissi & James Kinda-Sorta-Hopefully Funny Cartoon Podcast

He's courageous! He's amazing! He's... a mouse in a London pillar box. Danger Mouse protects the world from the criminal activities of Baron Silas Greenback and various other would-be world beaters alongside the hapless helper Penfold, all with the stiff upper lip we associate with our friends from across the pond. Running for over a decade in its native country and doing good business in the States for Nickelodeon, the secret agent gave many 80s kids in America their first real taste of British comedy.

A semi-major FIFA mascot who came from a comic book isn't the craziest choice for a cartoon subject, but Sport Billy did not deserve to be saddled with the bizarrely bad acting of Lane Scheimer. A mid-season replacement on NBC in 1982, the show would be the last Filmation product that network would pick up for their Saturday morning schedule. No amount of penalty kicks can make up for this! Pemmy, Krissi and James have been wanting to get this out of the- I mean, examine this now rarely seen cartoon for a while, so come join them!

Three goofy ghosts running a moribund motel for the dearly departed? That's a GREAT idea for a cartoon! Then how the heck did Hanna Barbera make this so... so... below average!?! It's a sad thing when even the likes of Paul Winchell, Joe E Ross AND Alan Oppenheimer cannot salvage this mediocre effort. If they couldn't, what hope do us ameteurs have?

Hide your cats, the old Alfer is back, and NOT in pog form! With the smash success of his sitcom, Gordon Shumway quickly joined NBC's Saturday morning roster in 1987 courtesy of DiC. And you can tell they were given a budget for this show since it's downright lavish compared to a lot of that company's output. In fact, this is a better than average cartoon and we were pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it, so get your earbuds ready for the next best podcast episode this side of Melmac.

N'cha! Too few American fans of Akira Toriyama have seen the anime that first made him a household name in Japan, and that includes James and Krissi. So Pemmy and special guest Kylepedia help them fix that with this examination of the first two episodes of this absolutely goofy series. So come join us in Penguin Village where pigs announce the morning, the sun brushes its teeth and adorable Arale-Chan tries to figure out the world around her, which in turn can't quite figure her out.

Faster than a speeding plot device! More powerful than hammy voice acting! It's the most famous season of the show that defined the DC Comics heroes and villains for an entire generation of kids! The Justice League versus the Legion of Doom across 16 episodes of some of the most over the top camp ever seen on Saturday morning, cramming a massive cast into the 22-minute run time. So join Pemmy, Krissi and James as they answer the Trouble Alert!

In part 2 of our coverage of the Super Mario Super Show, we hustle to Hyrule and check out the Friday feature of the series, The Legend of Zelda. In this Moonlighting-inspired take on the then-fledgling franchise, Link and Zelda butt heads and fend off the warlock Ganon together in a cartoon that's turned campier with age. And yet it's... surprisingly adult??? Tune in for our explanation why.

Is there any more consistently enduring 80s icon than Mario, the mascot of Nintendo's platforming games? Well, whether you agree with that or not, Mario Bros Mania was indeed everywhere by the end of that decade and this cartoon was the ultimate proof of that. A wild mix of live action segments and goofball cartoons putting the plumbers and company into every story the writers could think of, this was arguably the high-water mark for adaptations of video game properties for a long while. Faint praise, but seriously, this is far from the worst thing on TV in 1989!

With Pemmy away visiting his kid for their birthday, Krissi leads James on a cyberpunk-style take on the Holmes Cannon courtesy of DiC and Scottish Televison. With writers absolutely game to make the most of their 20-minute time allotments, this series comes so close to perfection you can almost taste it! 

This podcast isn't much like a hurricane, but it come at you fast! DuckTales was Disney's biggest step into television animation to that point, and it was the single biggest harbinger of the 90s Animation Renaissance, paving the way for much of what would follow. Justin Toner joins the podcast crew as we dive into the Money Bin to check out two classic episodes of the seminal afternoon series.

We've dipped our toes in Disney content in the latter half of last year, but now it's time for one of their most famous stars to get the spotlight. Donald Duck is by far the most prolific Disney character between animation and comics across the globe, making him a natural first choice for our dives into the material that built the foundation of the Disney company. Pemmy, Krissi and James are joined by Marc and Jordan of That's Not Quite All Folks to check out his very first animated appearance and three all time classics from the 40s.

Two tales of holiday redemption, together in one podcast to close out the year. Pemmy and James look at the very first TV special inspired by the works of Dr. Seuss as Chuck Jones builds upon a 9 minute read and makes a masterpiece, while Disney tackles Charles Dickens' literary classic while squashing it down to about 25 minutes. Have a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season, and we'll see you all in 2024!

No dammit necessary, he's Gumby! The little clay fellow who could go anywhere, do anything, and wound up in all sorts of messes because of those very attributes. With friends Pokey, Prickle and Goo, Gumby's adventures enchanted generations, inspired numerous stop motion artists to come, and could quickly go from adorable to WILD in a heartbeat! Join us as we watch how a molded figurine broke the mold!

You've seen the meme "Every so often a blue dog comes to guide the generations," right? Most folks today can speak to Bluey and Blue's Clues, but what of animation's OG cyan canine, Huckleberry Hound? This gentle, optimistic fellow broke Hanna Barbera's TV animation company to the big time, setting the stage for Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, Top Cat, Scooby Doo and everything else that followed. He's near and dear to James' heart, so join him, Pemmy and Krissi as they give the dog his due.

Surprise! We have an episode as unexpected as the success of the show in question! On October 13th GLITCH unleashed onto YouTube this demented little treat of a cartoon aimed at a slightly older crowd than much of the fare we've covered on this podcast. Pemmy loved it, and he talked James into making this quick bonus episode of the podcast to cover it while it was still new and relevant. But be warned, there are SPOILERS ahead, so if you want to watch the Amazing Digital Circus first, you should really go do so.

Al Capp, the cartoonist behind Lil' Abner and (thereby) the original portrayals of the Shmoo, passed away just two months after this show made it onto the air. We can't even begin to imagine what the outspoken Capp must have thought of his parable for the Earth's bounty being turned into a mystery solving shapeshifter. It was one of the last of the teen mystery/adventure cartoons not to involve Scooby Doo himself that HB would bring to Saturday morning, and watching this, you can kind of tell why the subgenre was in its last days.

Puppy Power Goes Wrong! Or rather, it first goes right then goes wrong? Or goes right in all the wrong ways? The legacy of Scrappy-Doo, one of the most maligned characters Hanna-Barbera ever created, isn't as simple as some make it out to be, and Pemmy, James and Krissi sit down to hash out what happened, when and why, while looking at three cartoons featuring the pup. It's a tale of network executives meddling, writers reaching and Fred Flintstone's catchphrase being turned into yet another dog. Enjoy!

In comedy, the law is that diametric opposites are inevitably pulled together just because the universe wants to see personalities clash. Hence, in this modern Disney Channel favorite, the ever optimistic Molly drags curmudgeonly Scratch into misadventure after misadventure. Pemmy and James dip their toes into the house that the mouse built for the first time, just in time for Halloween.

Because nothing is scarier than Disney lawyers.

In the wake of Arleen Sorkin passing away last August, Pemmy, James and Krissi Harding set out to pay tribute to the character she was instrumental in unleashing on the world. That a snarky little gun moll named Harleen Quinzel could somehow upstage the Joker himself and become one of the most recognizable characters in DC Comics to this day is a testament to the series and her creators Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and especially Arleen herself. Enjoy, puddins!

Few criminals in animation history are as notorious or beloved as Lupin the Third, the simultaneously suave and goofy gentleman thief. In his second anime run, which Pemmy and James look at in this episode, the character became TMS' flagship property, running over 150 episodes. Many of his US fans first encountered him via Adult Swim's broadcasts of an English language dub, but there was a prior project that saw a small amount of this series dubbed for the home video market, and we check out a little of both!

Video game mania erupted in the early 1980s with the arrival of Namco's revolutionary maze-chase game, so leave it to Hanna-Barbera to turn the property into a dollar store diet cola version of both the Smurfs and the Flintstones. That's just the kind of rut HB was in during the 1980s, sadly, but it's not a complete loss thanks to the efforts of a stellar voice cast. Friend of the podcast and all-around Pac-Man expert Cary Woodham joins Pemmy and James to find the cure for Pac-Man Fever.

Before Smash Brothers, before any of the Capcom crossover fighting games, before just about any significant gaming crossover, there was a humble little cartoon on NBC called Captain N. DiC let kids live vicariously through Kevin Keene as he's sucked into the worlds of Mega Man, Metroid, Castlevania and more... except a LOT was changed in the translation from cartridge to cartoon. Krissi Harding returns once more as we try and make as comprehensive a look at this show as a trio of silly animation enthusiasts can. Press Start to Play, Select for Options.

Commercial bumper audio credit to YouTube user DLisCreative652

50 Episodes?? YABBA-DABBA-DOO!!! As massive Hanna Barbera nuts, Pemmy and James couldn't think of a better show to watch for this little milestone than their most successful foray into prime time television. The Flintstones ran a solid six seasons with the brilliant voice acting of Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl, Bea Benaderet and Mel Blanc at the helm, cementing Hanna Barbera as a force in entertainment for decades to come. What else but a caveman with mood swings could sell children candy-flavored vitamins, after all?

Thank you, one and all, for sticking with us, and here's to the next 50 episodes!

Heavens to athlete's foot! With 20 years under their belt, Hanna Barbera plunged into their character archive to assemble three teams to compete in a pastiche of Battle of the Network Stars in Laff-a-Lympics. Just getting there, though, was a long, winding race to rival any carrying of the Olympic torch! Pemmy, Krissi and James line up on the track to talk about the mother of all cartoon crossovers!

Pemmy and James wonder if the makers of the original Highlander movie expected anything like this to be spun off from it: a cartoon set 700 years after the apocalypse, where the Immortals give up killing each other except for one malcontent named Kortan. Still, there's prophecy, Macleods, swordplay and some remarkably done backgrounds in this animated series that in many ways feels like a product of the previous decade. And sadly no soundtrack from Queen, either.

Great Scott! The very first original cartoon series from Universal's then newly minted animation firm was a direct follow up to the Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale-helmed movie trilogy. Except... not precisely. The series isn't considered canonical to the films, and looking at these episodes there's any number of potentially valid reasons why. So head back in time with us to the radical 90s as we see if this cartoon has the juice to get us to 1.21 gigawats!

Underwater adventures! A teenage rock band! Exotic monsters! And best of all, a talking shark! How could Jabberjaw possibly be bad?! Well, there was the fact that the writers at Hanna Barbera have been going to the same "teenage mystery/adventure" well for seven years now and it was starting to dry up. Despite this, Jabberjaw remains one of the company's more memorable characters, and this week we explore the ocean depths of his unintentionally humble start. Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk...

Arguably one of the most popular series of shorts DePatie-Freling put together that's not directly tied to the Pink Panther film franchise, a debonair ant is perpetually pursued by a back-talking aardvark. What separated this from other chase cartoons? SASS. So much SASS. That and a really catchy soundtrack from Doug Goodwin! 

Daffy was most frequently at his Daffiest under the directorial vision of Bob Clampett. The rubbery animation and wild, exaggerated takes he employed made the screwy duck probably his most effective character to express his individual sense of what was funny. Pemmy and James explore one of Bob's earlier Daffy cartoons co-starring with Porky Pig in Porky's Last Stand, before diving into a trio of Bob's masterpieces from the tail end of his tenure at Warner Brothers: Draftee Daffy, Book revue and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery. Should you miss this podcast? Well now I wouldn't say that!

Hey kids! It's a fresh syndicated start that'll warm anyone's heart! Well, at least it'll make it laugh. Yogi's Treasure Hunt was a key part of the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera block of shows, bringing the first generation of funny animal characters back to form and returning Dastardly and Muttley to the company after a rights dispute. It started modestly, but ended with some of the most unusual parody work the company would ever do. X marks the funtastic spot in this episode, so come on and join us!

We've had a lot to say about Hanna-Barbera's meddling kids style shows of the 1970s, but what of the properties that made them a household name in the first place? The best place to start is by packing this pic-a-nic podcast for a trip down to scenic Jellystone Park for a look at one of their most popular characters, Yogi Bear! With 2 shorts from his time as part of the Huckleberry Hound Show and 2 shorts from his own headlining program, we hope you'll find this to be smarter than the average cartoon podcast!

With Wrestlemania just coming around the corner, Pemmy and James are joined by the Uncharted Territory's podcast's own Chad Olson to turn back the clock to the era of the very first Wrestlemania and the WWF's quest to broaden their audience. Partnering with DiC, we got cartoonish exaggerations of personalities who were themselves already larger than life and sometimes very un-PC, and some of the worst animation errors we've seen to date on the podcast. Whatcha gonna do?! Listen, we hope!

Check out Chad's work on the Legends of Wrestling card and dice game at www.filsingergames.com !

Break out the varied polyhedral dice, it's time to revisit the first major piece of D&D related media ahead of the big movie coming out at the end of the month! Six kids get stranded in a non-specific realm loaded with D&D beasties via an amusement park ride, and regularly match wits with the ruthless (and not very wise, just look at his stat sheet) Venger. It racked up a solid three seasons, but how does it hold up now? Krissi Harding returns to the couch to help us put the show in its context and judge its merits!

Podcast listeners, Transform and ROLL OUT!

No other boys toy line to get a cartoon in the 1980s seems to have had nearly the longevity that the Transformers have had. The mix of science fantasy, boisterous characters and imaginative designs just clicked into place like a well built Leader Class toy, in spite of all the wild animation errors and goofy scripts. So what was the secret? Pemmy and James look at the episodes "SOS Dinobots" and "Webworld" to try and pin down the foundation of what makes this franchise keep on truckin'.

Oo De Lally, this movie had a wild and winding history to its making! Robin Hood is arguably the cult sensation of the various Disney feature films, not nearly as big as the Silver Age and Rennaissance Age hits that sandwich its release, but still much adored by those who grew up with it. Linwood Knight joins James and Krissi to break down why the movie turned out as it did, especially with all that notorious recycled and traced over animation, and discuss what worked and what could have worked better.

JAWBREAKERS!!

They were the odd ducks of Cartoon Network's first real burst of original programming. The brainchildren of Danny Antonucci, Ed, Edd & Eddy's misadventures in their cul-de-sac usually ended in pain and humiliation in equal measure. The unique animation and bizarre slant on the kids' slice of life format made it a sleeper hit that ran for 10 years with new episodes on and off for that duration. So come on and grab your favorite plank as we check out two classic schemes from their run. (Insert Ed-like non-sequetor here)

Room-a-zoom-zoom! The Josie variation of the Scooby Doo mold is put into action on the race track as Speed Buggy adds elements of Speed Racer and the Love Bug into the mix. Is Tinker the most unlikely mechanical genius out there? Is Debbie the most underrated female character in Hanna Barbera's library? Can James withstand the sheer number of times relationships of space and volume are plain old ignored?! Join us and find out!

From her roots as Dan DeCarlo's creation named after his wife, Josie McCoy's eight year journey from comic books to cartoons took some interesting turns before she and the Pussycats even hit the airwaves. Once they did, their show was somehow more than the sum of its parts, and sits alongside the likes of Top Cat and Wacky Races as one of Hanna Barbera's best single season efforts. So come on and watch the good guys win!

The holiday season is wrapping up, and as Krissi Harding helps Pemmy and James warm up from their misadventure, they enjoy a look back at two more vintage Christmas specials. A Garfield Christmas and A Claymation Christmas Celebration both debuted on CBS on December 21st of 1987, making them natural fits to review together, and possibly set the stage for some of the subjects we're planning on tackling in 2023.

Happy Holidays, one and all! (I'd say Merry Christmas, but, you know, it'd be 5 days late)

The weather outside is frightful, but the podcast is so delightful, and... ummm... yeah, I can't finish the lyric. Seriously, folks, a lot of what we've been looking at this fall has pointed us to this very Christmas special, one of the four most well known of its ilk. It's a tale of the consequences of bullying, of misfit toys and oddball prospectors, and a truly memorable performance by Burl Ives. And hey! If you liked this, tune in two weeks from now for more Christmas fun!

Due to scheduling conflicts, the Ed Edd & Eddy episode is delayed and to maintain our schedule we're breaking the glass on this emergency fill-in episode. If you've listened to this for any length of time, you probably noticed we tend to refer to this big old list of shows, shorts and eventually movies we want to look at. So here's a behind the scenes look at Pemmy and James going over what cartoons they want to talk about in the coming years. Enjoy! Trust me, this won't be an annual thing, that would get redundant quickly.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, in a cartoon made as cheap as they can. Pemmy and James are joined by Kylepedia to look at the very first cartoon starring Marvel Comics' most iconic hero of them all. It's a debut that gave us Dr. Octopus' ever-changing haircut, a propeller boat made entirely of webs, and that theme song that hasn't left the public consciousness since the show debuted. 'Nuff Said.

We're putting on the nonsense, and realizing that perhaps it's too much for even us! Pemmy and James look at this Rankin Bass production animated by British group Halas and Batchelor Studios which adapted the works of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash and many more. It's limericks, riddles, puns and poems with a Laugh-In format, a goofy cast of jokesters and not a lot of structure, making it a fascinating experiment in the era of Scooby-Doo and the Archies.

When Fred Silverman wanted more Scooby, he sure got it! These hour length episodes cemented the great dane and the Mystery Inc crew in the pop culture firmament by pairing them with the likes of Batman, the Three Stooges, Sonny and Cher and many more. Since Halloween is coming up, though, Pemmy and James thought it most appropriate to revisit their episode with the Addams Family, which coincidentally is the only episode not available on current home media. All this, and James' most shameful secret! ... not really.

What scares a notorious chicken-heart like James Irish more than the classic horror tropes? Absolutely wretched cartoons like Quacula, which was introduced to him by Pembroke W. Korgi. James swore revenge soon after. Seriously, the B-Feature in the ABA format for the Heckle and Jeckle revival on CBS is proof that even Frank Welker can only elevate bottom of the barrel material by so much.

Also this show features a writing credit from Paul Dini. I don't think he puts this on his CV.

They're tiny, they're tooney, they took the fight right to Disney for syndicated dominance! Tiny Toon Adventures brought Warner Bros' animation division back to top form, with the help of Steven Spielberg and a host of talented writers, artists and voice actors. Krissi and James are joined by friend of the podcast Meiou to discuss the wild comedic lunacy of a trio of short subjects from the first season, and a pair of music videos. If you know the show, you probably don't need us to tell you which music videos they are.

Scheimer and Prescott get their hands on the Terrytoons characters and turn out one of the most random, fast paced productions of the 1970s. Is it any good? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh... not really, but it is still strangely enjoyable, at least to Pemmy. We break down this bonkers show in our easily imitated fashion!

Identical characters distinguished only by their voices, Heckle and Jeckle joined the ranks of cartoon trickster royalty courtesy of Paul Terry's production unit, distributed by 20th Century Fox. They were some of the most critically lauded shorts that studio ever made, but have they aged as well as, say, the Looney Tunes or MGM's Tex Avery shorts? Pemmy and James look at two of the best of the bunch to find out!

Rankin Bass, purveyors of stop motion holiday specials and mid 80s action shows, dipped their toes in the Saturday morning scene for a spell in the late 60s and early 70s, with this particular show hitting right in the middle of that period. Featuring character designs by Paul Coker inspired by the books by Kenneth Grahame, the adventures of Tobias the Dragon and Mr. Toad would have fit in perfectly with Rocky & Bullwinkle. If only this show didn't debut 10 years past the point that style was in vogue...

A tale of two brothers... brothers who love horrible movies, engage in bizarre misadventures, and sound like Salem the Cat and Zim. The Angry Beavers debuted in 1997, with the Nicktoons era in full swing, and proceeded to absolutely annoy the president of Nickelodeon, and then be overshadowed by that pineapple-dwelling fellow two years later. Now, over 20 years later, James introduces Pemmy to this cult classic series. He may never forgive him. (We're kidding, he has fun!)